Anthropic Claude Opus 4.5 — what it is, when to use it and what to use instead

Summary

Claude Opus 4.5 is the oldest Opus model still available, at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens. It is limited to a 200K-token context window and 64K max output, where every later Opus release offers 1M and 128K at the same price.

Opus 4.5 was released on 24 November 2025 and is the last Opus model before the 1M-token window arrived. It carries the same $5 / $25 price as Opus 4.6, 4.7, 4.8 and Claude Opus 5, which makes it the weakest value in the line on paper: a fifth of the context window and half the output limit for the same money.

It accepts text and image input and returns text, with manual extended thinking and effort defaulting to high. The reliable knowledge cutoff is May 2025.

No deprecation has been announced, but Anthropic's availability commitment runs only to 24 November 2026, the earliest date of any active Opus model. That is the date to plan against.

Modality

• Text
• Vision

Use case

• Chat
• Coding
• Reasoning
• Agents & tool use
• Long context

Tier

• Frontier

Access

• Hosted API

Languages

• Multilingual

Specifications

Input price

$5.00 / M tokens

Output price

$25.00 / M tokens

Price band

Premium

Context window

200K tokens

Max output

64K tokens

Input

Text, image

Output

Text

Knowledge cutoff

May 2025

Tool use

Yes

Structured output

Yes

Weights licence

not published

Model maker

Anthropic

“unknown” means the figure has not been published, or we have not verified it yet — never that the answer is no. “not published” under the weights licence means this model is not offered with downloadable weights. The price band is ours: it bands the blended price (three parts input to one part output) as budget (≤ $0.50), standard (≤ $3), premium (≤ $12) or flagship.

Lifecycle

Anthropic has not announced a deprecation or shutdown date for this model. That is a statement about what has been published, not a guarantee — providers typically announce a shutdown months ahead, and this page updates when they do.

1. Released 24 November 2025
2. Deprecated not announced
3. Retired not announced

Use it for

• Keep an existing Opus 4.5 integration running while you schedule a migration before the November 2026 commitment window closes.
• Reproduce earlier results on a pinned snapshot where output has to stay comparable.

Avoid it when

• You are starting a new integration; Claude Opus 5 costs the same $5 / $25 and gives you a 1M-token window instead of 200K.
• You need more than 64K output tokens in a single response.
• You want a long availability runway; Anthropic's commitment for this model runs only to 24 November 2026.

Alternatives to consider

• Claude Opus 5 Curated

  Anthropic ● Active

  The current Opus model at an identical $5 / $25, with a 1M-token window against 200K and 128K max output against 64K.

  $5.00 in · $25.00 out / M tokens · 1M context

• Claude Sonnet 5 Curated

  Anthropic ● Active

  Cheaper at $2 / $10 and still a 1M-token context window, so a downgrade in tier but an upgrade in limits.

  $2.00 in · $10.00 out / M tokens · 1M context

• GPT-5.6 Sol Curated

  OpenAI ● Active

  OpenAI's flagship tier at $4 / $20 with a 1.05M-token context window and a February 2026 knowledge cutoff.

  $4.00 in · $20.00 out / M tokens · 1.1M context

• Claude Opus 4.6 Derived

  Anthropic ● Active

  Same provider, same tier (frontier), similar price; shares chat, coding, reasoning, agents and long-context.

  $5.00 in · $25.00 out / M tokens · 1M context

• Claude Opus 4.5 Derived

  Amazon Bedrock ● Active

  Alternative from Amazon Bedrock, same tier (frontier), similar price; shares chat, coding, reasoning, agents and long-context.

  $5.00 in · $25.00 out / M tokens · 200K context

Curated suggestions were picked by a reviewer, with the reason written by hand. Derived suggestions are ranked from the data — shared tags, the same tier and a comparable price band — not from benchmark scores. Check the capability fit yourself: we track lifecycle, price and specifications.

Sources

• platform.claude.com ↗ https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/models/opus-4-5/overview
• platform.claude.com ↗ https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing
• platform.claude.com ↗ https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/models/overview
• platform.claude.com ↗ https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/model-deprecations

Verified against the source on 10 September 2026. Dataset snapshot 10 September 2026. Providers can change a date without notice — the link above is always the final word.

About this profile

The specifications and dates above are facts from Anthropic, with the sources listed. The summary, the use-for and avoid-when lists and the curated alternatives are our assessment: editorial profile reviewed on 21 September 2026 by llm-researcher.